Liberals are so predictable! Back after January 20th 2009, Barack Obama couldn’t stop saying at every occasion , “I won.” He was unprepared to tolerate any dissent or disagreement. “I won,” he said.

The Democrats assembled in back rooms, to which Republicans were not admitted. They wrote bills to which Republicans were not allowed to contribute. They were uninterested in Republican ideas, nor were they interested in statistics and experience about the ideas they were enacting. They produced 2000 page bills laden with pork and bad ideas and then didn’t allow Republicans enough time to even read the bills, and forced them through on party line votes by bribing and twisting arms. They spent more money to no purpose than any Congress ever has. They raised the national debt and the deficit to unheard of levels, and utterly squandered it.

In November, the Democrat Party suffered in 2010 the greatest defeat following a new president’s election since 1922. A Repudiation, a shellacking.

This was supposed to be the era of permanent Democrat dominance. Having been soundly repudiated, they gathered their defeated, fired members back to Washington DC to try to ram all their wishes through in a last-minute Lame Duck session. A session the Constitution never intended to take place. Nor did it intend for legislators who have been voted out of office to continue making laws.

Now, as predictable as the sun dropping below the horizon at night, Democrats are whining about bipartisanship! Why aren’t the Republicans cooperating! Why aren’t they helping the President to get what he wants? How dare Republicans oppose the sainted Obama!

The President has left for Hawaii, celebrating all his accomplishments. He seems to believe that getting things passed that the American people reject is an accomplishment. His self-regard and arrogance know no bounds.

“Has there ever been a major economic summit where a U.S. President and his Treasury Secretary were a thoroughly rebuffed as they were at this week’s G-20 meeting in Seoul? We can’t think of one. President Obama failed to achieve any of his main goals while getting pounded by other world leaders for failing U.S. policies and lagging growth.

The root of this embarrassment is political and intellectual: Rather than leading the world from a position of strength, Mr. Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner came to Seoul blaming the rest of the world for U.S. economic weakness. America’s problem, in their view, is the export and exchange rate policies of the Germans, Chinese or Brazilians. And the U.S. solution is to have the Fed print enough money to devalue the dollar so America can grow by stealing demand from the rest of the world.

A subsequent piece is titled “Obama Tries to Repair Damage” in the World News section of the paper, and describes his visit to Japan for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. That didn’t go well either. In a news conference that closed the summit, Mr. Obama said:

“Part of the reason the United States is attracting dissent is we’re initiating the ideas. The easiest thing for us to do is take a passive role and let things drift. But we thought it was important for us to put forth more structure” for a global economy emerging from financial crisis.

American Spectator suggests that since the President took a “shellacking” the other day, he might be looking for someone weaker to bully. So during his visit to Indonesia he attacked the people of Israel for its decision to advance the approval of some 1,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem during a sensitive time in the peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Netanyahu fired back: “Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is the capital of Israel.”

When the Palestinians stop firing rockets into Israel and stop training their children to be jihadists, there might be room for an agreement, but it is not going to come about because of Mr. Obama’s bullying.

The source of all this angst is, of course, the 2010 election which represented “the greatest defeat for a newly elected president in a midterm since the Republican Party under Warren Gamaliel Harding in 1922.” pointed out James Ceaser in an essay at Real Clear Politics. James Ceaser is a professor of politics at the University of Virginia and a senior visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Jonathan Last suggests that President Obama’s problems are rooted in his vanity, in an article at the Weekly Standard, titled “American Narcissus.” His vanity, Last says, is overwhelming. It defines him, his politics, and his presidency.”

The point of all this is that Mr. Obama pointedly refuses to acknowledge the unmistakable message of the midterm election. The problem, Mr. Obama claims is just that he isn’t creating jobs fast enough, and Americans are frustrated.

As James Ceaser says: The Democrats’ open campaign is to persuade the public that the election did not mean what Republicans thought, and “there is an allied effort underway, far more subtle, to undermine and weaken the Republican position. It comes from a group of self-proclaimed wise men who present themselves as being above the fray. These voices, acting from a putative concern for the nation and even for the Republican Party, urge Republicans to avoid the mistake of Obama and the Democrats after 2008 of displaying hubris and overinterpreting their mandate. With this criticism of the Democrats offered as a testimony of their even handedness and sincerity, they piously go on to tell Republicans that now is the time to engage in bipartisanship and follow a course of compromise.”

In this post-midterm election period, everyone seems to be in a sort of digestive period. Republicans are trying to analyze what they can do, and what they can’t , to welcome their new members, and particularly to reassure and caution their supporters.

The president has the initiative, and the veto. And the president doesn’t seem to grasp the meaning of the election. There is little, if any, self-analysis. What analysis there is concerns his “gift,” his ability to sway opinion, to transform attitudes and endear himself to others with his words. He is quite sure that he just didn’t explain the correctness of his policies. He really wants the economy to recover more quickly and business to start hiring, but it all just takes time, and he didn’t explain that well enough. He didn’t explain fully enough just how his policies were going to help the economy recover.

Democrats are taking it hard. A staffer for a congressional Democrat who came up short on Tuesday said that “a team of about five people stooped b their offices to talk about payroll, benefits, writing a resumé, and so forth, with staffers who are now job hunting. But one of the staffers was described as a ‘counselor’ to help with the emotional aspect of the loss — and a section in the packet each staffer was given dealt with the stages of grief (for instance, Stage One being anger, and so on).

Funny, the pundits are talking about the angry, irrational, hateful conservatives.

California. They used to talk about separating it at the San Andreas Fault and letting the coastal section float away.

Someone I knew spoke of the time many years ago when he was driving through the redwoods in Northern California, being held up on a narrow road by a vastly overloaded car ahead. It looked as if they had loaded every last one of their possessions stuffed in the car, and what wouldn’t fit inside was tied on top. When they got close, there was a crudely hand-lettered sign in the back window of the car: “Goodbye, California, and all your God Damned Geraniums.”

Michelle Malkin noted that: Governor-elect Jerry Brown extolled renewable energy as the route to salvation, and said he is “full of energy, full of creativity, and ready to serve you, the people of California.” He also said that he’ll make a better executive this time around because he’s married now.

He added “I still carry this missionary zeal to transform the world.”

Maggie’s Farm said is it “Any Wonder why California is Going Broke? And offered the proof of decline with a list of California state agencies. If you were unsure of what is meant by “Big Government” don’t miss this.

Victor Davis Hanson, a fifth-generation Californian, offers his take on the election in California.

In California, there is some irony: The philosophy that led the state to the highest tax rates in the country, along with the near-worst schools, largest deficits, and most crumbling infrastructure, was reaffirmed. Now California’s state government will have to deal with the reality that if the highest-tax state in the union raises taxes still higher, it will lose even more high earners than the current 3,000 who leave each week.

I lived in California, Northern and Southern, San Francisco and East Bay, Los Angeles and Orange County. Never been back. Hated the place.

Britain’s Telegraph, by Nile Gardiner. Headline; The midterms may have saved a superpower: Americans say no to US decline.

Tonight’s emphatic conservative House victory in the US midterms is a powerful rejection of President Obama’s handling of the economy and his Big Government agenda, including his controversial healthcare reform plans. The conservative revolution has been largely spurred by disenchantment with the federal government, and a strong belief in limited government, lower taxation, and reduced public spending, as well as a desire to return to America’s Founding principles.

The Telegraph again, by Benedict Brogan. Headline “Can David Cameron turn America’s weakness into a strength?”

Until yesterday, our ministers were under strict orders to avoid all references to America’s gargantuan deficit and to Barack Obama’s failure to address it. When Mark Hoban, the Treasury minister, dared to suggest last month that the US had taken the wrong decisions on fiscal policy, a jittery White House was on the phone to Downing Street in an instant. Why was a British politician helping the president’s enemies?The midterm elections show that Americans don’t need the Limeys to tell them something is terribly wrong with their economy, and possibly with those in charge of it. The Republican surge, and the Tea Party insurgency, have left America’s friends asking searching questions about the United States, and about how Britain should adapt in an age when the relationship may be special, but is no longer the only one that matters.

The Foreign Office is already calculating the ways in which Mr Obama’s weakness could undermine progress on all manner of fronts, from the Middle East to trade talks. In No 10, they worry not only that the US economy is in deep trouble, but that American government in all its forms is seizing up, even entering a period of long-term decline.

The Democrats suffered a debacle at the polls in the US on Tuesday — and President Barack Obama is to blame. Once celebrated as a great communicator, the president has lost touch with the mood in his country. Now, he must re-invent himself. But can he succeed? (…)Obama, the great communicator, turned into the country’s lecturer-in-chief. His reforms required a vision to give them an overarching structure. But instead, Obama preferred to go on about the failures of his predecessor George W. Bush, who had long retired to his ranch in Texas. Or else he analyzed how the impact of the global recession would have been far worse without him and his economic rescue team.

His advisors seem to still believe that the public just doesn’t understand how much good Obama has achieved, from health care reform to tougher regulations for the Wall Street gamblers.

After the immense damage of the last two years, the midterms have offered the United States an opportunity to reverse course and get back on its feet. The world needs a powerful, successful, dynamic and prosperous America, where individual liberty and freedom are the driving forces, rather than the overbearing deadweight of federal government. The American people have spoken, and the White House must be held to account.

What a wonderful tidal wave! Or call it “The Surge.” Yet like many, I probably had my hopes a little too high. I really thought that Sharon Angle could defeat Harry Reid, but I will have to be consoled with Chuck Schumer’s disappointment. I was hoping that Sean Bielat could take down Barney Frank, an eventuality much to be desired.

I was hoping for some progress in California, but they apparently prefer to continue their slide into the abyss. And Washington being Washington, we will have to wait and wait for the final count on the Murray/Rossi race. Washington is a very blue state: King County vs. the rest of the state.

Lots of exciting outcomes. Marco Rubio is a new Senator and an impressive one. The execrable Alan Grayson is history. The Republican takeover of the House of Representatives is huge, a gain of 60 seats with 11 still to be decided, and a rebuke to Obama, Pelosi and Reid. Five more governors with 4 yet to be decided, and a stunning sweep of state legislatures.

Everybody is full of advice for he new Congress, yet we still have to do with the old difficult one. The lame duck session should be interesting.

President Obama clearly doesn’t get it. With a depressed, deer-in-the-headlights attitude, he argued that the problem was really the economy he inherited — we were voting against Bush? — and we are really angry that his agenda just isn’t progressing fast enough. He is talking down to us again, and he seems hurt that we don’t appreciate him enough. He wants to push ahead with his agenda, only faster.

So he’s off to India with an entourage reminiscent of all the opulence of a Rajah in the olden days. Two hundred million dollars a day, is the estimate. He really, really doesn’t get it.